From our mailbag: In its October issue, which will hit the stands on September 8, Bon Appetit magazine will declare Portland "America's Foodiest Small Town 2009."

Bon Appétit Restaurant Editor and BA Foodist Andrew Knowlton says: "This year, it's all about the sea. In our second annual report on the nation's top food cities, Portland, Maine takes the prize for its fresh seafood, local beers, artisanal bakeries, and the best breakfasts in the country."

Tin House, the Brooklyn- and (other)Portland-based quarterly literary publication, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year (much like another icon of words and culture!). Its celebratory issue, on the shelves now (Longfellow Books has one or two copies left, at last check), is a modern literature geek's dream -- David Foster Wallace's first-ever published story!; new works from Aimee Bender, Amy Hempel, and Lydia Davis!; filmmaker Jon Raymond on Saul Bellow; Francine Prose on the 1970s; and (and here we come to the relevance) poetry by Stephen King, who rarely writes in verse.

I stopped into Find this afternoon, the new vintage/consignment/clothing-exchange shop at 16 Free Street (where Arabica used to be). Owner Laura Ker, a Waterville native who returned to Maine last April after sojourns in New York and New Mexico, has set things up beautifully -- tons of denim, plus shirts, sweaters, jackets, and shoes for men and women (more stuff for girls than guys right now, but she plans to expand the male section soon).

Democratic Representative Mike Michaud annouced funding for a new veterans clinic in Bangor today. According to a press release, "the new 28,982-net-usable-square-foot facility will provide a secure and efficient layout, and effectively accommodate the space needs and workload on the Maine Veterans Home campus in Bangor.

Evan Ratliff has gone missing - intentionally - and the hunt is on. The person who finds him will get $5000.

He wrote a piece for this month's Wired magazine about people who disappear, and is trying it himself for a month, hoping to elude a crowdsourced effort to find him and win the cash.

You can find all you need on wired.

From the Why Don't These People Send Us Press Releases Dept.:

On this week's Bull Moose Top Fifteen local-item sales list (which we adapt to our local music top ten) appeared something new:

Curtis K. Charles Blueprints For Collapse

Apparently, this is a new local film, available at Bull Moose for $5.97 (plus any applicable taxes, we assume).

Mainebiz reports today that signs suggest Governor John Baldacci may be balking at reappointing Maine Public Utilities Commission chairman Sharon Reishus to her post. This is a positive sign, and Baldy should let her term lapse and find someone else.

Among other things wrong with Reishus, she asked no questions of Verizon or FairPoint during the public hearings on that we-told-you-it-would-be-disastrous deal. Think it might have been good if someone had?

-- I know who I'm nominating. Do you?

-- Overheard at Brian Boru on Saturday evening: "You are the closest thing to a pomegranate I've seen all summer." -- Man, to [non-plussed] woman

-- Saw the Legacy Theater production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown on Friday night at Thornton Academy. Great deceptively simple set, fun with costume/prop proportions, and talented cast (particularly Audra Anne Curtis, whose brash, bossy Lucy was pitch-perfect, and Ben Row, who does a great precocious/overeager dog).

Last week, we told you how bad the oversight of the Maine State Prison is, and we added a late-breaking tidbit: Warden Jeffrey Merrill was given a new job, effective immediately. While David Hench over at the Press Herald figured out that Merrill was being ousted, Abigail Curtis at the Bangor Daily News had no idea what was going on

Fully half of a Treehugger.com list of the nation's 10 greenest colleges are in New England. Here they are, along with their green highlights:

• Yale University (Connecticut) -- undergoing a college-wide green audit (including athletics department); wants to reduce its emissions by 43 percent by 2020
• College of the Atlantic (Maine) -- first carbon-neutral college; composting toilets in dorms
  
  

We hereby declare a moratorium on gay-marriage pro- and opponents impugning each other about out-of-state aid -- financial, personnel, or otherwise.

Stand For Marriage Maine, the opposition group behind this fall's People's Veto of the gay-marriage law, sent out a press release today that reads, in part:

One of California's largest gay activist groups held a press conference on Wednesday, August 12, announcing they will be diverting resources to Maine to help to keep Maine's new anti-traditional marriage bill on the law books.

Erik Desjarlais's restaurant, Evangeline, was just named one of America's top ten French restaurants by Saveur magazine's editor-in-chief, James Oseland, in an article in USA Today.

He and his wife, Krista Desjarlais of Bresca, will soon be starting 12 Seats, which may allow Erik even more room to experiment with his talents.

GridSolar, which I wrote about last month, achieved a victory in Saco this week. The Saco City Council said okay to a 20-year lease on city-owned land, adjacent to a former city landfill. It's the first of these types of arrangements for GridSolar, which proposes building medium-scale solar panel installations on 8000 open-field acres around Maine to fill gaps in energy supply at peak-demand times.